Heloise: Cookbook smudges mark good recipes

Dear Heloise: In a recent column, a reader gave suggestions for how to keep cookbook pages clean. Though I understand her reasoning, I wonder how younger generations will know how to find "Mom's" favorite recipes.

When my cousin passed away, her children weren't sure which recipes she used on a regular basis. I told them to look through the cookbooks for dirty pages. I'm sure many contain recipes she made more than once. As I have gone through my mother's cookbooks, I treasure the splatters and fingerprints left there by her hands. — Kathy F., Canton, Ohio

You are right in my book! I just went through one of my mother's cookbooks looking for an old recipe, and it was a wonderful experience to see those old, old recipe pages and notes in the margin. — Heloise

Dear Heloise: Growing up in rural Tennessee gave me a love for such foods as turnip greens and seasoned cured ham. Now, however, I have to watch my calorie and fat intake. So, I now use fat-free beef- flavored bouillon for the seasoning. It is delicious, with almost no added calories. — Doug J., Watson, La.

Dear Heloise: Whenever I use aluminum foil for cooking, I crinkle up the foil, which makes for less contact with the item being cooked, making it less apt to stick to the foil. The more crinkles, the better. I find it especially handy when reheating pizza, because the foil hardly sticks to the pizza at all. — Gerry V., via email